Bereavement

I.

How stern are the woes of the desolate

As he bends in still grief o'er the hallowed bier,

As enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,

And drops to perfection's remembrance a tear;

When floods of despair down his pale cheeks are streaming,

When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,

Or, if lulled for a while, soon he starts from his dreaming,

And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.

II.

Ah! when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,

Or summer succeed to the winter of death?

Rest awhle, hapless victim! and Heaven will

The spirit that hath faded away with the breath.

Eternity points, in its amaranth

Where no clouds of fate o'er the sweet prospect lour,

Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,

When woe fades away like the mist of the heath.

Bereavement is No. 5 in 'Poems From St.

Irvyne, or,

The Rosicrucian'.

Hutchinson's Shelley, 1905, relates that Rossetti put the date of this poem at 1808, but there is also a footnote for the same that dates it 1811.